Sberbank goes down in Forbes rating

March 27, 2015. Russia’s Sberbank went three positions down in the Forbes banks’ reliability rating for the year 2015. The bank is now placed 8th on the first-group-reliability list.

Remarkably, Nordea Bank, Citibank, HSBC Bank, BNP Paribas, Crdit Agricole CIB, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and MSP Bank were all ahead of the country’s largest bank in this rating.

Citibank, however, was also demoted from the first to the second place.

Forbes analysts explain that the most reliable banks operating in Russia at the moment are daughter enterprises run by foreign banks.

‘This year, the international sanctions imposed on the Russian banks and businesses because of the events in the Crimea brought the country’s international ratings down to ‘junk’ low. The ratings of Russia’s leading banks were consequently badly affected as well. Only two Russian banks managed to retain their international ratings; both of them (Sberbank and MSP Bank, which belongs to Vnesheconombank) are wholly or partially state-controlled and have both been sanctioned,’ Forbes says.